Hoarders is back this weekend!
I have to admit that I’m kind of excited that A&E TV’s Hoarders program is having its third-season debut on Monday. They’ll be airing back-to-back new episodes starting at 9 pm/8 pm central.
Part of the reason I’m excited for it to start again is that my pal, Geralin Thomas, CPO-CD® is a regular on the show. And another friend, Standolyn Robertson, CPO® is on frequently.
As I’ve mentioned before, I find it riveting television. It helps me in my work to see the therapists and the organizers working with these clients. I wish the show would focus less on the misery of the people who hoard and the conflict the hoarding causes with their family members. I’d prefer it if they’d move faster to the help, because that’s the part that I really enjoy. And I think it’s the part the viewing public can benefit from.
That complaint aside, I’ll be sitting in front of the TV Monday night ready for back-to-back episodes!
Visual task management
As I blogged last month, I’ve been experimenting with personal kanban for task management. It’s based on a Japanese model of project management, adapted to personal tasks.
I’ve found it to be simple and effective (though I haven’t dug into all the theory behind it) and thought I’d share my thoughts on it. It seems to me that the system is particularly good for visual people, who like to keep things in their face.
Here’s how it’s worked for me:
I took a 30” x 24” white board and divided it (using dry-erase markers) into three columns:
- Backlog (which takes up half the space)
- Doing (which takes up 1/6 of the space)
- Done (1/3 of the space)
I did a brain dump of my tasks, one per Post-it note (I use 3” x 3” Post-its) and put them in the Backlog section. I add tasks as they come to me.
When it’s time to plan my day, I peruse the backlog, selecting up to five tasks to put in my Doing column. I never allow more than five tasks in my Doing column.
When I finish those tasks, the Post-it moves to the Done column. At the end of the day, I remove the Done tasks, placing some back in Backlog if the task wasn’t completely finished.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It seems very simple to me, though when you start digging around on the Internet, there’s lots of theory and jargon behind it.
Here’s today’s board, at the beginning of the day, after I took off my Dones and figured out the day’s Doing:
Daily tasks are stashed in the lower right area.
I’ve found some great benefits to this system:
- It keeps me focused on the few tasks I’m supposed to be doing at any given time, rather than flitting from one to another or feeling overwhelmed by my backlog.
- I use my intuition to pick the tasks that move from Backlog to Doing. I don’t do any fancy prioritizing. (I hate prioritizing tasks.)
- I get to see my progress as the Done section fills up over the course of the day.
- I don’t have to keep track of tasks—I just put them in the Backlog section.
- It’s easy to color code, which gives me a sense of the time I’m spending in various arenas of my life. I use different colored Post-its to represent general business/client work, work on e-commerce, work on business-related volunteer projects and personal items.
- The physical limitation of the Backlog section forces me to get stuff done (or throw tasks out).
Every now and then the Backlog section gets really crowded. When that happens, I follow the suggestion of Jim Benson, the personal kanban guru, and do a Time Capsule in which I pluck off a bunch of small tasks, put those notes on my desk, and power through them. That’s very effective. If I spend an hour or so a week doing that, lots of little things get done (and off my board).
The biggest drawback, so far, to this system (for me) has been the lack of portability. I’m accustomed to keeping a to-do list with me (like my Autofocus list, one of the systems that preceded this effort). When I’m out and about, I have to jot down the task and remember to put it on my board.
I just today downloaded a personal kanban iPhone app called iKan, which may solve the problem. I don’t like the the idea of having both electronic and physical boards, so I envision the iKan for me to capture tasks. But I haven’t even played with it yet. I’ll report back.
If I were into electronic task management, I could use an electronic personal kanban system, like LeanKit Kanban. But the physical one is working nicely for me.
How's your relationship with the mail?
I’m usually excited when the mail comes. Don’t ask me why; gone are the days of surprise letters or cards from people. And that’s okay, I love email. But I always scurry to the door when the mail arrives.
So I love the prospect of great mail, but I don’t always like the reality of the actual mail. Bills. The occasional notice from the IRS. Insurance claim denial letters. There was a time in my life, before I became an organizer, where I would let that scary mail fester in a pile. Sometimes I didn’t even open it. I don’t have to tell you that not opening bills does not lead to good.
But in the course of my training and work as a professional organizer, I developed a system that I recommend to clients for handling their mail so it doesn’t pile up. It’s worked really well for a lot of my clients.
So I set to work making it available to people who don’t hire me for one-on-one help. And the result is Make Peace with Your Mail, my spanking new four-lesson e-course.
I’m really excited about its launch, particularly since it represents a lot of learning and effort on my part. I learned to shoot and edit video. I learned about autoresponders and about making shopping carts talk to autoresponders. I love it when I master new stuff.
And here’s a chance for you to master your mail. A chance for you to greet the mail with joy and keep the piles away. A chance for you to mend your relationship with your mail. All for only $59. And for an extra $10 you can join the monthly “Let’s Do Thing Thing Together” teleparties and personalized answers to your questions about your mail.
Please go and check out Make Peace with Your Mail. Let me know what you think.
Letting Go of the Tough Stuff class
I’ll be giving a low-cost class called Letting Go of the Tough Stuff on September 8 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Thomas Dunn Memorials Adult Education Program in south St. Louis city.
The talk will cover the questions to ask yourself when trying to decide wether to keep or let go of items, identifying the stuff that’s important to keep, and techniques to make the decluttering process easier for people who tend to develop a sentimental attachment to their stuff. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers.
The fee for the class is $10. To learn more about the class, check out the course description on Thomas Dunn Memorial’s website. To register, go to the registration page to download a registration form for 300-series courses. Fill it out and mail it in. If you have questions about the registration procedure call Thomas Dunn Memorials at 314-353-3050.
Check out their website for lots of other free and low-cost classes!
Playing catch up
As I mentioned last week I went on vacation last month. I was gone for eight days and though I know better, I didn’t really allow a day or two to catch up before jumping right back into work obligations.
I returned late Tuesday night and here it is Monday morning and I still haven’t quite finished unpacking. Or completed the laundry. Or gone through my physical inbox. (I did manage to get my email inbox in good shape quickly.)
So now I’m in a place where I need to use small pockets of time to play catch up. I had several meetings yesterday, and some time between them, so I used a couple of small pockets of time to go from behind to caught up so that I can spend the rest of the week making progress, rather than just catching up.
At 8:25 a.m. and I took a picture of my inbox.
That stack was in danger of falling over.
I had a phone meeting at 9:00 and at 8:25 I set a goal is to make a huge dent in the half hour prior to the meeting.
By 8:55 I’d made some progress. But I had to stop and have my meeting. Here’s the 8:55 shot:
Afte 30 minutes, almost finished!
My meeting ended at 10:05 and I jumped right back to my inbox, spending 10 more minutes to clear it out. The two things left in it I left there intentionally. Here’s the after photo:
After a total of 40 minutes...done!
Man, that feels better! I threw away a bunch of papers and added a few things to my to-do list (and put the corresponding papers in my tickler file). But now I know there’s nothing scary lurking in inbox. I’m feeling more caught up.
Staying on top of things like paper is the ideal. But when circumstances (like vacations) intervene and a backlog piles up, isolating the backlog and grabbing snippets of time to chip away at it can really work. I’m almost always surprised at how much I can get done in a half hour.
Cheaper isn't always better
I’m all for saving money. But last week I learned a valuable lesson about how saving money at the expense of time isn’t always such a great idea.
I flew to Portland last week, stayed with my wonderful friend, Shannon Wilkinson (my partner in Declutter Happy Hour), then rented a car and drove to Walla Walla, Washington to visit family and attend my high school reunion.
As I planned this trip, I kept my eye on airfares and never saw one that I thought was inexpensive enough. I’m fortunate to have a wonderful friend who is a pilot for American Airlines and he offered me the chance to use one of his passes for a deeply discounted fare. The catch: I had to fly standby.
I’ve done this a number of times before, with nary a problem. I’ve even done it right before Christmas. But this year things are different. Flights are fuller. Flying standby is, to put it mildly, more difficult.
I arrived at the St. Louis airport on Monday morning at 5 a.m., aiming to get on a 6 a.m. flight. I didn’t get on that 6 a.m. flight. For the rest of the day, every couple of hours I’d go to a gate and wait, hoping to get on the next flight to Dallas to connect to a flight to Portland. Seven different times, I was disappointed. I finally got on the last flight of the day, the eighth one. It left at 7 p.m. That’s right, I spent 14 hours in the St. Louis airport.
The connection to the last flight to Portland was tight. If all went well, I’d have about 15 minutes to make the last flight to Portland. Alas, all didn’t go well. Our flight was delayed in taking off and I missed the Portland flight. I was able to get on a flight to Seattle, though. I’m very lucky to have good friends and one of them arranged for his brother to pick me up at the Seattle airport, put me up for the night, and drive me to Portland in the morning, if you can believe that. So it could have been much worse (and more expensive).
Faced with the prospect of having an equally difficult time getting home, I started looking at one-way fares. And I found a pretty good one. So I ponied up a couple of hundred dollars extra for a confirmed seat. And it was well worth it. My trip home was on time and stress-free.
The lesson here? Sometimes it’s just not worth it to take the cheap route. I was stressed out for an entire day, all in an effort to save a few hundred dollars.
The lesson isn’t limited to travel. It can apply to all sorts of effort-saving expenditures, like purchasing technology or hiring someone to help you do something you’re not great at (or do it for you).
We’re in a recession. It’s smart to curb expenses. But my experience last week reminded me that saving money doesn’t always have to be the priority.
How long should I keep that stuff?
Just yesterday, I was interviewed by the fabulous journalist Michelle Rafter for an article called Paper Chase: Should It Stay or Should It Go? about how long to keep certain types of records. It’s already up on the website Second Act, which is aimed at people who are (like me) 40 years or over.
If you have questions about how long to keep stuff, hop on over there. Check out the whole website while you’re at it. It’s full of great information.
